14th Biennale of Contemporary African Art in Dakar: first visits, first artistic emotions

The 14th edition of the Biennale of Contemporary African Art opened in Dakar, Senegal, on May 19, 2022. AFP - SEYLLOU

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The 14th Biennale of Contemporary African Art in Dakar opened on Thursday May 19 on a multitude of sites, including the new Museum of Black Civilizations.

This is where the national pavilions of China, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal are grouped. 

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With our special correspondent in Dakar, 

Sébastien Jédor

Senegal plays at home in the building of the Museum of Black Civilizations, built on the model of the Casamance

impluvium

boxes .

The curator Massamba Mbaye chose an important element of the heritage, the "

wood bundle

", "

loositoo

" in Mandinka, as a basis for reflection for the artists, he explains: " 

The wood bundle refers to something natural because it is dead wood that is recycled to regenerate life through cooking.

So, in fact, traditionally people didn't choose green wood.

They took wood rejected by the tree.

And so, through this system, we also renew the cycle of life.

 »

► To read:

Spearhead of African creativity, the Dakar Biennale is back

Abdarahmane N'Gaidé works with wood in the literal sense.

Gardener and professor of history at the university, he sculpts bougainvillea to make infinitely modular shapes: " 

The exceptionality of bougainvillea is that it came with colonization

," says the artist. 

He comes from Brazil.

He had come to beautify the small houses of the old settlers.

Suddenly, after independence, the bougainvillea grew in the homes of the middle classes.

Bougainvillea can be planted anywhere.

It is very beautiful and it embellishes everywhere. 

»

Inexhaustible, Abdarahmane N'Gaidé does not reveal, however, the place where he cuts wood.

He only admits to sneaking in, discreetly, in dealerships.

 It is the hunter who tells the story of the lion and it is time for the lion to take back his story in hand

 ”

Among the essential artists of

the international exhibition of the Biennale

, there is also the Beninese Roméo Mivekannin, born in 1986. On large sheets, he reinterprets the paintings of Western masters, such as Titien or Géricault by questioning the place blacks in their day.

Like other artists of his generation, he questions the past to think about the future.

“ 

Me, I like to say that we are all the product of a story, of a chaos that has lasted for 2,000 years,

begins Roméo Mivekannin. 

At the same time, this generation you are talking about are people who were born after the 1960s. We are completely uninhibited with history, we are talking about the time after.

But we can't question the time after without replaying the ritual of the trauma, from where, somewhere, it failed.

So, it's completely normal that we are this whole generation that takes all the stories.

It is a way of telling new stories, since, until then, those who told the official stories or in any case the stories that were told in the official books were not written by us.

And as we often say in Africa, it is the hunter who tells the story of the lion and it is time for the lion to take back his story in hand

.

»

► To listen:

Noir Concept: African art and design in the spotlight

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